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Working Life & Trades Collection
Image: Planes - Jack, Trying, Grooving, Tongueing and Moulding, Yarra Punt Builder
Source: Museum Victoria
This collection aims to document and preserve the history of Victorian workers, and to record their impact on and contribution to Australian society.
Focussing on the post-European settlement period to the present, it aims to reflect the experiences and actions of individuals and groups of workers in different historical, personal, social, economic and cultural settings. It also aims to document the personal and unique renderings of workers' experiences and actions.
Much of the collection documents 'case studies' of working life in Victoria and Australia. These offer insight into a particular type of workplace and work, with some emphasis on workers' voices, while the wider collection represents a variety of working-life skills, experiences and cultures.
The strengths of the collection lie in its coverage of early to mid-20th century factory work, small businesses and trades and the trade union movement. It focuses on work practices in more formal work environments such as factories, commercial workshops and the traditional apprentice-based trades, but is complemented by other collections of less formal workplace objects, such as the home work and handicrafts area in the Domestic and Community Life Collection.
Trades relating to metalworking and precision engineering, especially those requiring the extensive use of machine tools and power tools, are covered under the Engineering Collection rather than in Trades.
Significant items
- Barfoot Bootmaking Collection: 211 items from a former surgical bootmaker's business.
- Bruhn Collection: 985 items from a father and son woodturning shop operated in Carlton and later South Melbourne, 1920s-1980s.
- Grenoble Gloves Collection: 454 items from a Melbourne glove factory started in 1944.
- McInnes Delicatessen and Butcher's Shop: 106 items from the East Malvern shop, which operated from 1933 to the 1970s.
- Newmarket Saleyards Collection: 27 items from former livestock saleyards.
- Pigment Manufacturers of Australia (PMA): 135 items from a major paint manufacturing plant at Laverton, 1960s-1990s.
- Sam Brown Bootmaker's Collection: 297 items from a former bootmaker's shop in Albert Park, c. 1930s-1980s.
- Simpson's Gloves Collection: 1491 items from the former Simpson's Glove Factory which operated in Victoria Street, Richmond, from 1924 until 1988.
- Victorian Institute for the Blind Collection: 107 items from former RVIB workshops.
- Artworks, including Ambrose Dyson, David Armfield and Aileen Brown, 1950s-1980s.
- 'Stick Together' radio program oral history collection, 1970s-1980s.
- Contemporary occupational health and safety material, 1990s.
- Stonemason's tools and early bootmaking machinery.
See The Working Life Collection, and an essay on this collection from A Museum for the People: A history of Museum Victoria and its predecessor institutions 1854-2000.
Items per page: 10 50 (showing 7911 - 7920) 8724 items
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Photograph - H.V. McKay Massey Harris, Farm Equipment Manufacture & Field Trials, Sunshine ...
No.2 haypress attached to a Massey Harris Model 30K tractor. The length of the bale was controlled by the insertion of special boards at intervals. The bales were then hand-tied with tw ...
From: Sunshine, Australia Images: 1 -
Token - 1 Penny, J.M. Merrington & Co, Invercargill, New Zealand, circa 1860
Copper One Penny Token, minted by Heaton & Sons, Birmingham. Issued by J.M. Merrington & Co, Invercargill, circa 1860. J.M. Merrington was a draper and outfitter. Previous Collections ...
From: Nelson, New Zealand Images: 2 -
Token - 1 Penny, J.M. Leigh, Tobacconist, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, circa 1852
Copper One Penny Token, minted by an unknown British mint. Issued by J.M. Leigh, Tobacconist, Sydney, circa 1852. In 1851 James Mayne Leigh began trading in George Street East, Sydney. ...
From: Sydney, Australia Images: 2 -
Glass Negative - Motor Vehicle at River Crossing, circa 1930s
Van on pebbly riverbank about to enter the water.
Images: 1 -
Token - 1 Penny, J.M. Merrington & Co, Invercargill, New Zealand, circa 1860
Copper One Penny Token, minted by Heaton & Sons, Birmingham. Issued by J.M. Merrington & Co, Invercargill, circa 1860. J.M. Merrington was a draper and outfitter. Previous Collections ...
From: Nelson, New Zealand Images: 2 -
Photograph - Daniel Harvey Pty Ltd, Workman Assembling Machinery, Victoria, circa 1950
Photograph of a workman assembling an agricultural machine component. Image is part of a collection of photographs, documents, company records and trade literature relating to Daniel Ha ...
From: Box Hill, Australia Images: 1 -
Photograph - Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, Kodak Factory Yard & Buildings, Abbotsford, Victor ...
Black and white, silver gelatin photograph of a view of a Kodak factory yard and buildings in Abbotsford, Victoria, circa 1951. The Abbotsford factory was initially the site of the Aus ...
From: Abbotsford, Australia Images: 2 -
Glass Negative - Man and Methodist Inland Mission Motor Vehicle at Water Bore, circa 1930s
Van marked 'Methodist Inland Mission' with a man sitting alongside. There is a windmill in the background.
Images: 1 -
Token - 1 Penny, J. MacGreggor, Sultan's Steam Coffee Works & City Tea Warehouse, Sydney, ...
Bronze One Penny Token, probably minted by Heaton and Sons, Birmingham. Issued by J. MacGreggor, Sultan's Steam Coffee Works & City Tea Warehouse, Sydney, circa 1868. James MacGregor's ...
From: Sydney, Australia Images: 2 -
Token - 1 Penny, J. McFarlane, Wholesale & Retail Grocer, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, ...
Copper One Penny Token minted by an unknown British mint. Issued by J. McFarlane, Wholesale & Retail Grocer, in Melbourne, Victoria, circa 1851. McFarlane arrived in Melbourne in 1841 ...
From: Melbourne, Australia Images: 2
